University of Virginia Library

7. VII.

“The next day came the movement of the
hunters, still under the conduct of Moitoy, from
the one to the other side of the upper branch of
the Keowee river, now called the Jocassée, but
which, at that time, went by the name of Sarratay.
The various bands prepared to move with the daylight;
and still near, and still in sight of one another,
the Occonies and Estatoees took up their
line of march with the rest. The long poles of
the two, bearing the green bird of the one, and
the brown viper of the other, in the hands of their

respective bearers — stout warriors chosen for this
purpose with reference to strength and valor —
waved in parallel courses, though the space between
them was made as great as possible by the
common policy of both parties. Following the
route of the caravan, which had been formed of
the ancient men, the women and children, to whom
had been entrusted the skins taken in the hunt,
the provisions, utensils for cooking, &c. the great
body of hunters were soon in motion for other and
better hunting-grounds, several miles distant, beyond
the river.

“The Indian warriors have their own mode of
doing business, and do not often travel with the
stiff precision which marks European civilization.
Though having all one point of destination, each
hunter took his own route to gain it, and in this
manner asserted his independence. This had
been the education of the Indian boy, and this
self-reliance is one source of that spirit and character
which will not suffer him to feel surprise in
any situation. Their way, generally, wound
along a pleasant valley, unbroken for several
miles, until you came to Big-knob, a huge crag
which completely divides it, rising formidably up
in the midst, and narrowing the valley on either
hand to a fissure, necessarily compelling a closer

march for all parties than had heretofore been
pursued. Straggling about as they had been, of
course but little order was perceptible when they
came together, in little groups, where the mountain
forced their junction. One of the Bear tribe
found himself along side a handful of the Foxes,
and a chief of the Alligators plunged promiscuously
into the centre of a cluster of the Turkey
tribe, whose own chief was probably doing the
proper courtesies among the Alligators. These
little crossings, however, were amusing rather than
annoying, and were, generally, productive of little
inconvenience, and no strife. But it so happened,
there was one exception to the accustomed
harmony. The Occonies and Estatoees, like the
rest, had broken up in small parties, and as might
have been foreseen, when they came individually
to where the crag divided the valley into two,
some took the one and some the other hand, and
it was not until one of the paths they had taken
opened into a little plain in which the woods were
bald — a sort of prairie — that a party of seven
Occonies discovered that they had among them
two of their detested rivals, the Little Estatoees.
What made the matter worse, one of these stragglers
was the ill-fated warrior who had been
chosen to carry the badge of his tribe; and there,
high above their heads — the heads of the Brown
Vipers — floated that detestable symbol, the green
bird itself.

“There was no standing that. The Brown
Vipers, as if with a common instinct, were immediately
up in arms. They grappled the offending
stragglers without gloves. They tore the green
bird from the pole, stamped it under foot, smeared
it in the mud, and pulling out the cone-tuft of
its head, utterly degraded it in their own as well
as in the estimation of the Estatoees. Not content
with this, they hung the desecrated emblem
about the neck of the bearer of it, and, spite of
all their struggles, binding the arms of the two
stragglers behind their backs, the relentless Vipers
thrust the long pole which had borne the bird, in
such a manner between their alternate arms as
effectually to bind them together. In this manner,
amidst taunts, blows, and revilings, they were
left in the valley to get on as they might, while
their enemies, insolent enough with exultation,
proceeded to join the rest of their party.